


Boys and Old Men

by rhymer23



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gap Filler, Gen, Missing Scene, The Night's Watch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 14:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8848312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhymer23/pseuds/rhymer23
Summary: On a cold morning at Castle Black, Lord Commander Mormont and Maester Aemon discuss the future of the Night's Watch, and of one new recruit in particular.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in 2005, or so, purely for myself, and proceeded to forget all about it. I found it lurking on my hard drive the other day and decided to edit it and expand it a bit, and post it here for the sake of completeness. It's set half way through the first book, just before Jon and Sam take their vows, and contains no spoilers beyond that point.

When morning finally dawned, it was grey, barely brighter than the night that had preceded it. The top of the Wall was lost in a heavy pall of cloud, and the men in the courtyard below him moved like wraiths through the mist. 

"Winter is coming," said Lord Commander Mormont, his words turning to steam on the icy window. "A long summer means a long winter, or so they said when I was young. The wildings are mustering, and they bring whispers on the wind, tales of dreadful things that surely cannot be true, but yet…"

His words faded into silence. He pressed his hand against the ice-cold glass, fingers spread.

"Will we see another spring?" he murmured. He had not meant to speak that fear aloud, but there it was. 

"Spring," the raven echoed, taking his murmur and turning it into a raucous cry, impossible to deny. 

Even on a bright day in summer, what could be seen from this window? Ruined towers and tumbled stones. Sleeping quarters long since abandoned. Once, great lords and even kings had visited them and honoured them. Once, ravens had brought a constant flow of messages from the other towers along the Wall, but now all but two had fallen into darkness. Benjen Stark was lost, and too many other good men. They were so few, and getting fewer by the day.

"Sometimes," he admitted, "it feels as if the end if very near. Will I be remembered as the Lord Commander who lost the Wall?" 

_Or will I be remembered at all?_ he thought. Because if the Wall fell, would there be any men left alive to do the remembering?

Maester Aemon said nothing. Even the raven did not speak, merely scrabbled in the corn. Mormont sighed; forced a smile onto his lips. "I am sorry. I am in a dark mood today, it seems. Eight new brothers will take their oaths today – just eight, when once we would have welcomed three score at a time. Eight for me to place, but who are they? _What_ are they? Thieves and illiterate boys, for the most part. So little, when once we had so much." 

"Much," agreed the raven, but Aemon remained silent. 

Mormont shook his head and managed a quick breath of laughter. "These is no need to say it. I am a fool, wallowing in self-pity." In truth, he could not have spoken of his fears to anyone but Aemon. To everyone else, he had to be the Lord Commander, strong and wise and a stranger to doubt. Benjen Stark he had trusted to see more, but Benjen Stark was lost, and none of the other officers could match him. He had said more to Tyrion Lannister, too, but that had been a tactic of desperation, designed to shock the man into arguing their cause. Now only Aemon was left, and Aemon saw more in his blindness than many men saw in a lifetime of sight. 

"I had a visitor last night," Aemon said. 

It sounded like a change of subject - a rebuke, perhaps, for his self-pity - but years of acquaintance with Maester Aemon told him that it was more than that. Mormont turned away from the window. Aemon still sat where the steward had settled him, hands folded calmly in his lap. 

"He came to me in the middle of the night and demanded that they rouse me from sleep." Aemon's milky eyes were turned to the fire in the hearth. "Most importunate, he was, but young men so often are." The raven cocked its head, eyes gleaming. "It was Benjen Stark's nephew, Jon Snow."

An arrogant and insubordinate brat who fancied himself a lordling, or so said Ser Alliser Thorne. Donal Noye told a different tale, but what did it matter? Jon Snow's future was clear, even if so little else was. He would become a ranger like his uncle. Perhaps he would even become a good one. "Demanded, did he?" Mormont said.

"Oh yes." Aemon smiled. "He came to tell me that Samwell Tarly should be allowed to take his vows as a sworn brother of the Night's Watch."

Mormont raised an eyebrow. "And he came to you rather than to Ser Allister, who trains them, or the Lord Commander who leads them?"

"Of course he did," Aemon said. "Samwell is to assist me in my duties, you see."

"He came as a petitioner, then," said Mormont, "to beg you to favour his worthless friend? This is no corrupt southern court. We do not trade in favours here. Here, a man advances by worth alone."

"Oh no." Aemon shook his head. "He did not beg. He was more clever than that. He mustered his arguments like a military campaign, leaving me no room to say no. He reminded me that many links make up a maester's chain, and many skills are needed in a kingdom. You cannot hammer tin into iron, he said, no matter how hard you beat it. Thorne, it seems, plans to hammer the Tarly lad until he has broken him. Why break a man, Jon Snow argued, when you could make use of him?"

"Presumptuous lad, this Snow," Mormont said, and the raven echoed, "Snow."

"And he is right, of course," Aemon said mildly. "As you say, winter is coming. Self-pitying, you called it, but that makes it no less true. The Night's Watch needs every man it can get. Samwell Tarly will never be a swordsman, but he is clever, loyal and kind-hearted, and he loves books. There are many ancient books in the castle library. What secrets are there within their pages, that the Watch has lost the will or the skill to discover?"

"Books cannot hold the Wall against an army," Mormont said. "I need swords and I need men who can wield them."

"And yet I, too, serve the Night's Watch, and wield no sword." As ever, Aemon's milky eyes were impossible to read. "I would learn more of this Samwell Tarly. I would learn if Jon Snow is as wise in gauging his friend's potential as he was in his choice of words last night. And if he is, and I believe that he is, I would teach young Samwell how to be a shining link in the chain that is the Night's Watch."

Mormont stepped forward. As he did so, the raven launched itself noisily upwards, flapping to the half-empty bookcase. A black feather fell onto the back of Aemon's hand, who turned his face towards it but did not brush it away. 

Mormont passed his hand across his eyes. His response would have been an angry one, he knew, had it not been for the brief distraction of the raven's flight. Instead he spoke wearily, almost bitterly. "Who commands here, Aemon? Only the Lord Commander can decide who becomes a brother of the Night's Watch, not you, and certainly not some bastard upstart who can scarcely remember the last winter."

"Yet you accept the recommendations of a man like Thorne," Aemon said placidly. "But unlike him, I do not recommend. I merely request. I request that Samwell Tarly be assigned to assist me. I believe that he will ease the burden of my duties. I believe he will ease them considerably." He picked up the feather at last, turning it this way and that as if he could see the play of firelight on the black.

"And of course," Mormont said, "I would not be so petty as to deny such a request, as well you know."

Aemon nodded in thanks. "I am glad." The feather twisted to and fro. "Jon Snow told an interesting tale. Thorne is a bully, but of course you knew that already. He picks on all his boys, but when he tried the same treatment on Tarly, Snow intervened. He has been teaching the other boys more than Thorne has, but of course you knew that already. Some of the boys will already do anything he asks of them, but some needed cajoling and some needed threats. He dealt with each boy differently, in the way that was needed, and shaped them to his will. Now not a single boy will hurt Samwell, no matter how loudly Thorne commands them to, and no matter how much some of them secretly want to."

"Ah." Mormont reached idly for the pile of corn, letting it run through his fingers. Still on the bookcase, the raven eyed it but did not move. _Ah,_ Mormont thought. He had been a commander of men long enough to hear a message when it was being given.

"That is why Jon came to me," Aemon said. "To protect a friend from a bully. To protect a new recruit from a sworn officer of the Night's Watch who wishes to break him. But of course," he said, "you knew that--"

"You presume too much, Maester Aemon," Mormont snapped. 

Aemon folded his hands in his lap. "I am merely here to advise."

Mormont walked to his desk and sat down heavily. The lists were there, Jon Snow's at the bottom. It would be the easiest thing to pick up the pen and write 'ranger' beside his name and let the boy spend that presumptuous courage in blood north of the Wall. Instead, he dipped the pen in ink and paused for a while. Then, with a sigh, he wrote Samwell Tarly's name in the empty line below, adding the word 'steward' beside it. "You only needed to ask," he said. "You did not need to tell me this tale. You could merely have asked for the boy, and I would have given him to you."

Aemon said nothing. A log cracked on the hearth, a sudden violent sound. 

"But I am not entirely lacking in wits." It had not been about Samwell Tarly at all, of course. It never had been. No, Maester Aemon had come here this morning out of concern for the fate of another boy. _At least he didn't drag me out of bed in the middle of the night for it_ , he thought. Age brought that much wisdom, at least. "He is very young," he protested. "Barely more than a boy."

"Boy," the raven echoed, and, "Corn. Corn."

"The world is ruled by boys," Aemon said. "The king and all the high lords are like boys to one as old as me. Old men have to step aside. If we want to know what the future will hold, we must look at children."

Mormont had never paid much attention to the boys. Most of them were thieves and rapers, the leavings of prisons in the south. Let Alliser Thorne beat them into some semblance of shape until they took their oaths. Let the other officers use them as best they could until they grew into seasoned men. He could use seasoned men, and one day the best of them would become officers themselves, but only a few, only so very few. Benjen Stark was gone, and other good men before him. Long ago, Mormont used to dream that a great lord or famous knight would come riding up the kingsroad to take the black, and in time, take command after Mormont's own death. Perhaps it would still happen. Perhaps Tyrion Lannister would make it happen. Perhaps…

He shook his head. Perhaps it would, but perhaps it would not. And if it did not, what then?

"Boys become men," Aemon said, "and they become better men if they are caught early and taught well."

Mormont let out a breath. He would do it, he decided. He would do this thing that Aemon was so carefully refraining from putting into words. He would take Jon Snow as his personal steward. He would watch him and test him and if he proved worthy, he would train him the art of command. If the tale Aemon told was true, it seemed that the boy already had the makings of a leader, but he still had so much to learn. 

"He will take it badly," he said. "He must surely expect to become as a ranger. Even Thorne admits that he is skilled with a blade."

"And if he takes it badly," Aemon said, "then you will have learnt something about him. And if he bows his head and goes where he has been sent, despite having been robbed of his dreams of leading the ranging that finds his uncle alive and well, then--"

"He told you his dreams?" Mormont asked.

"Oh no." Aemon shook his head. "But of what else would he dream? What else would any boy dream?"

"I don't need dreamers," Mormont said. "I need men who will do what has to be done, no matter what it costs them." It started harshly, but it ended in a sigh. How many dreams had been committed to dust across the centuries by men who took the black? As boys and men took their Night's Watch oath for the first time, how many saw it as the grave of all their former hopes? 

"And if he takes his oaths and comes to you whole-heartedly, then you will have learnt something else about him," said Maester Aemon. "And if he rails and glowers and clings to his dreams of glory…"

"Then I will have learnt something else," Mormont said.

"Yes," Aemon agreed. 

Yes.

Yes, the boy was still young, but there was time for him to grow. Winter was not yet here; might not be here for years. The boy's father was the most powerful man in the realm after the king. Tyrion Lannister has pledged to find more men to take the black. The realm was at peace, and for the first time in years, the Night's Watch had friends in a position of influence in the south. 

_Give me ten years_ , Mormont prayed. Let this winter be a short one. Let the threat from beyond the Wall prove to be no more than whispers. In ten years, with the support of both Stark and Lannister, the Night's Watch could become revered again and the abandoned forts could be rebuilt and packed with men. In ten such years, great knights a-plenty could arrive at the wall, each one worthy of command.

But if they did not… If Tyrion Lannister's promises turned out to be written on water… If Lord Stark's famous honour could not withstand the cesspit of court politics… If the forts remained empty… If a long winter came and the whispers beyond the Wall proved true… 

In ten years, a boy would become a man. In ten years, a boy could become a leader of men. _Could_ , he thought. _Might not. But could._

"Corn," said the raven from his perch on the empty bookcase. Somewhere outside, beyond the gate, a wolf howled, but it was not Jon Snow's white wolf. That wolf was always silent. It was one of the few true things Mormont knew about the lad; one of the few things he had seen with his own eyes, rather than learning through the words of other men. From this morning on, he would learn so much more.

_Ten more years of life_ , Mormont thought. _Ten years before true winter comes. Give me ten years._

Beyond the window, the clouds were fading into mist, and the Wall gleamed silver in the watery sunlight. Outside in the courtyard, a boy laughed, and then a man joined him. Someone started singing, just a few snatched words. Daylight had come, and it was not yet winter. Perhaps it would not be winter for many years. 

Mormont smiled, and still smiling, he dipped his pen in the ink and wrote a single word.

"Snow," said the raven, landing on his shoulder. "Snow."


End file.
